


Wash of Cold River

by thunderbottle



Series: Flares AU [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drowning, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hurt Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Minecraft IRL, Near Death Experiences, Recovery, Sharing a Bed, Sickfic, Vulnerability, i hate the real name tags so much dude, i'm gonna b real with you chief this can definitely be read as dnf, in my defense they just act like that, that's right baby the whole trio, these fists are rated E for everyone, this is meant to be abt the characters not the people <3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29912904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbottle/pseuds/thunderbottle
Summary: Dream falls through the ice on a frozen river and into a world of hurt. His family can save him, certainly, but what comes afterward?(this is an au for the manhunt series, not involved in dsmp lore)-Standard disclaimers: i don't use real names in this fic bc Cringe, this is meant to be about the characters and not the real people, this will be taken down if it falls under the category of uncomfortable for any of the ccs involved.
Relationships: Antfrost & Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Flares AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199651
Comments: 43
Kudos: 275





	1. In a Glacial Land

**Author's Note:**

> rundown of this au! in this world, manhunt is like a game of tag. death is permanent and the hunters win manhunt by capturing dream instead of killing him. they all carry flares on them in case dream or the hunting team gets into considerable danger and needs help. 
> 
> this fic was written for Shrike and dedicated to them. they came up with the flares au and cheered me on the whole way through writing this, i owe them my life.
> 
> also! i have already finished writing this so i will be update relatively quickly. i hope you enjoy! work and chapter titles are all from Hilda Doolittle's poem "Wash of Cold River"

Maybe they had all gotten too comfortable with the hunts. Maybe Dream’s stories of miraculous, death-defying skill during hunts had made them all lose the edge of worry they should have had for him. After all, they each had flare guns in their bags for a reason; if something went wrong, if they needed to call off the hunt, or for whatever reason they couldn’t go on, the flares were there as a last resort. 

Just because it was a last resort didn’t mean it never happened, though.

The hunting team was walking through a snowy forest in the early hours of the morning. Ant’s fur was fluffed up against the cold, feeling guilty looking at the shivering humans in the hunting party. They had been following the steady red needle of their compass through the clinging darkness for hours, not willing to stop and rest for the night. George had stolen Sapnap’s leather chestplate at some point, but both of the humans were still shivering. Bad, the ever-warm demon, kept them marching through the snow. Ant wondered if they should take a detour into a warmer biome, but it didn’t seem worth the time they would waste. Besides, the sun would rise soon enough and Dream was nearby according to the compass. He shook the clinging snow from his tail and kept walking, eyes on the horizon. 

The sky was just turning blue around the edges when the world was painted red. The flare burned high above Ant’s head like a brand on the heavens. 

“ _Shit._ ” Sapnap sounded somewhere between exasperated and worried. 

“It’s probably nothing too bad, right? How much trouble could he have gotten himself into this late in the game?” Bad was better at keeping the worry out of his voice, but it was still there staining each word. The last flare had been bad, involving far too many zombies and a few too many new scars.

George stared up at the flare and glanced down at the compass in Bad’s hands. “He’s close by. Let’s hurry.”

With that, the nervous energy broke over all of them like a wave. The steady pace they had adopted over night was replaced by a dead sprint with Bad in the lead, guiding them through the trees towards the source of the flare. 

It took them only a few minutes to reach Dream’s apparent location, but the bloody red of the flare and the bad feeling in his gut made it feel like an eternity. Ant tried to shake off the dread, but it clung to him as closely as the chill in the air, burning his lungs as he breathed.

Bad stopped abruptly in front of them, the rest of the hunters nearly running him over in their haste. “Stop stop stop! Be careful, I don’t want to be stuck fishing any of you out of the water, okay?”

Water? Ant looked around them, squinting as the red light of the flare began to burn out. There was a flat area before them: a wide river or lake that had frozen over. The ice was mostly covered in snow, but the exposed ice was nearly black in the darkness. It was far too thin for a safe passage. Just as he had started to work out an alternate route in his head, George gasped beside him.

“Look! There he is!” 

The red light of the flare was gone by then, replaced by weak sunlight. Silhouetted against the snow, a figure stood near the center of the ice upstream of where they stood. 

“Dream! You alright?” George yelled. He sounded relieved already.

Dream didn’t respond, but waved in their direction.

“Let’s get closer, c’mon.” Sapnap grabbed Ant and Bad’s arms to get them to follow him along the shore of the river. George ran in front of the three of them, trying to get an idea of Dream’s predicament as he went. 

“Oh my god he’s an idiot. Dream! You’re an idiot!” George yelled at Dream again, a smile creeping into his voice.

“Shut up! That isn’t helpful!” Dream was laughing, at least, when he yelled back at the hunter. Some of the dread melted away and Ant felt like he could breathe easily again. 

Bad sighed. “Gosh, was this really worth giving me a heart attack with that flare? I think we were actually going to win that time, too.” 

“Wait a minute.” Sapnap’s voice was quiet, nearly drowned out by the rushing water below the ice. “Wait. This could be bad.”

“What could be bad?” George glanced at the other hunter, that hint of nervousness back in his words at Sapnap’s tone.

“The ice is gonna keep getting thinner. The sun’s rising and it’s already warmer than it was a half hour ago. If the ice is already this thin…” 

Dream shifted his stance slightly, the motion catching Ant’s eye. As the runner’s weight shifted, the ice creaked ominously. 

“We’re running out of time.” Sapnap finished the thought with his eye locked on to Dream. 

“Well, it can’t be that bad, right? So what if he falls in, we can just fish him out again.” George said. He didn’t sound entirely convinced of his own words.

Ant looked out at the river, sizing it up in his head. “It wouldn’t be that simple, I think. The current sounds too fast, and snowmelt probably means it’s cold as hell. He could drown trapped under the ice.”

They didn’t speak for a moment after that, all of them looking at Dream. He stared back, fidgeting with one of his sleeves. Ant knew the man well enough that he had probably run the same scenario in his head. 

He took a deep breath and sat down, pulling his backpack in front of him in a rush. He grabbed the coil of rope attached to the side of the bag and unraveled it. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m the lightest of all of us. I’ll crawl out to get him and you guys will need to drag us both back. If we’re lucky, the ice won’t break and we’ll be home free. If we’re not, you’ll still have us tethered to pull out of the water. Got it?” He dropped one end of the rope in Bad’s hands. Praying that none of the other hunters questioned him. They didn’t have time to argue.

Mercifully, Bad nodded at him. It would have to do.


	2. Drift of Rare Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: this chapter has pretty graphic descriptions of blood and injury as well as some depiction of drowning. be careful!

George hated the plan. He hated a lot of things about the plan. If he had had a moment before Ant had gone gallivanting onto the ice like an _idiot_ , maybe he could have come up with something that was a little less risky. 

There was no taking it back now, though. Bad had the rope wrapped around one of his arms, uncoiling it as Ant made his way slowly towards Dream. 

Ant got up on his elbows to project his voice towards the runner. “Dream! Try to get down on your stomach!” 

“What?”

“To distribute your weight! Lay down!” 

Dream shifted again and the ice creaked under him like old floorboards. George was too far away to hear, but he was willing to bet Dream was humming nervously under his breath. 

Ant visibly winced at the creaking of the ice. “Go slow, go slow!”

“Yeah, no shit.” 

“Language!” 

“Sorry!”

The chill in the air was slowly inching away and for the first time in his life George wished it wouldn’t. Warmth meant the snow on the river was melting, revealing the deep black of the thin ice and the water underneath. Warmth meant that ice was getting thinner and thinner under Dream’s feet. 

He shivered as he watched Dream closely. There were lines of frost growing along the edges of his mask and mud stuck to his clothes. He didn’t look seriously injured, only one visible bandage wrapped around part of his left arm, which was an improvement from how he usually looked at this point in a hunt. He was tense. George could feel the runner’s nervousness even from across the river. It hurt to think it, but there wasn’t much he could do if something went wrong out on the ice. Still, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Dream shifted again, managing to get low enough to press a hand down to the ice. It cracked again, a warning, and the runner stopped moving. 

“Alright, that’s fine, you got this.” Ant was only a meter or two from Dream, but still too far away to grab him. 

Dream looked nervous, but started moving again anyways. He managed to sit down on the ice before…

The ice cracked like a gunshot. It set off a chain of longer cracking noises, splitting the surface of the river like a broken mirror. The sheet that Dream sat on turned black as water rushed over it, wiping off the clinging snow. 

Sapnap and Ant were yelling something, but all George could hear was the rushing water. He watched helplessly as the ice tipped under Dream and the runner disappeared into the current. 

“ _No!_ ” Ant screamed, lunging towards the hole in the ice. Before he could make it, Bad tugged the rope and started to drag the cat back to the shore. 

Before George could process what he was doing, he was moving. He ran along with the current, along the shoreline. Dream was still there. He was just under the ice, he was _still there._ He grabbed the compass from out of his pocket and watched the needle as he ran. It was flickering around, pointed to his right and into the water. George was keeping up with it, but only barely.

He glanced up at the river. This section was narrower than where Dream was standing, shaded by a looming cliffside. The exposed ice was a greenish-grey, not black. 

George took a deep breath and prayed to the spirits that he wasn’t being an idiot. Then, he stepped out onto the ice.

If he wasn’t trying to save his drowning, freezing best friend, he might have quailed at the dangerous creaking of the ice under him. All he could think in that moment, though, was that it was holding. He kept running, staring at the compass and trying to come up with a plan. If he could get ahead of dream and cut through or break the ice somehow, he might be able to pull him out and get them both back to land. 

When the compass needle began to falter, a tell-tale sign that its target was directly overhead or underfoot, George let himself feel a bit of fleeting hope. Dream was right there. He could reach him. 

“George! Are you tracking him?” Ant yelled from behind him.

“He’s right here!” 

“The ice is thicker here, how are we getting him out? He’s moving too fast!”

Before either of them could come up with something, George was given his third heart attack of the day. 

A glowing golden sword split through the ice right under his feet, hissing as it burned against the freezing water. IT was Dream’s sword! He had stolen it from an abandoned portal all the way back at spawn. It had _Fire Aspect_ , something that had annoyed them all to no end. George dodged out of the way as the blade slipped, melting a path through the ice from below until the flat of the blade caught on the ice. It jerked for a moment against the current, but held firm.

“Oh my god, oh my god.” Ant skidded to a halt next to him staring down at the sword. “Okay, this solves one of our problems I guess…”

George dropped to his knees downstream of the blade, brushing the snow away from the ice desperately. The ice was murky and the water was dark, but there was just enough of the morning light to see through it.

Dream was holding on to the grip of the sword, dangling in the current. The water had pushed his mask down just enough to see his eyes. Even though the ice made it all blurry, George was sure he could see fear in his expression. 

“Guys! Holy shit, is that his sword?” Sapnap had caught up with them, apparently. The other hunter went to join them on the ice, but the moment he put weight down on it the ice shifted under them.

“Don’t! We’re already pushing it with me and George being out here. We can’t risk any more weight.”

George stopped listening as the rest of them yelled plans and arguments back and forth. Instead he pressed closer to the ice, trying to see Dream better. He tried to count in his head how long it had been since the runner had gotten to breathe, but time was slipping through his fingers. All he could grasp was that it had been too long. 

Dream shifted under the ice, adjusting his grip on the sword. A flurry of bubbles came out from under his mask and were washed away by the current. George felt like something in his chest was collapsing. 

Before he could settle into the terror and panic, the universe came knocking. It was time for his fourth heart attack of the day, after all.

The sword slipped. It had melted away the ice a bit and began to tip and slide back into the water. On instinct, George grabbed the blade, leaning all his weight backwards, keeping the sword above the ice, keeping Dream anchored.

He barely registered the pain, but the smell of his skin burning where it was cut open was impossible to ignore. It didn’t matter. It _couldn’t_ matter. If it took a bit of blood and a few burns to keep Dream there, he’d consider it a pretty good deal. 

“George! Shit, oh my god.” Ant appeared at his side, his tail thrashing behind him like a whip. “I have an idea, Just hold on for a little while longer, I got this.” 

“What’s the plan?” George grit out the words, focusing on keeping his grip.

Ant rummaged for a few of the bottles hanging from his belt. “I have a fire resistance potion, I can reverse it! It should be hot enough to melt the ice and we can fish him out. I’ll be a minute, okay?”

Goerge gave him a jerky nod, biting down on the inside of his cheek. The pain was setting in now that he had a good grip on the sword. He didn’t want to look at his hands at first, but his gaze drifted to them pretty fast. Blood was running down the flat of the blade, the edges digging into and under the skin of his palms. He hadn’t lost control of any of his fingers, which meant that it hadn’t cut deep enough to damage any of the bones or tendons, but the amount of bleeding was worrying. On his right hand, the sword was cutting through the soft skin between his index finger and thumb. If he wasn’t careful, it would damage the joint. 

He looked down, searching for Dream. The smiling mask was clear through the ice, and his face was close enough to the surface that George could see that his eyes were open, squinting up at him over the rim of white porcelain.

They were running out of time. Dream could only hold on for so long, could only hold his breath for so long. “Ant! How much longer!”

“Give me like, two seconds! The spider eye needs to combine completely or this won’t work! I’ll tell you when to let him go.”

“Let him go?”

“Yeah, I’ll open a hole downstream a bit and fish him out when he floats past. Just trust me!” 

George looked back to Dream. The runner’s eyes met his and his heart stopped. Despite everything they had been through, George had never seen enough of his face to see him scared. Something inside him hated that this was how their eyes truly met for the first time.

There was the sound of glass breaking behind him and the hiss of melting ice. 

“Now! Let go now!”

George peeled his hands off of the sword, wincing as it slipped and cut deeper into his palms. Dream shifted under the water, twisting against the current as the sword disappeared beneath the ice again. His eyes snapped back to George and for a moment he couldn’t help but feel like they looked betrayed, terrified. 

And then Dream was gone from him, slipping away from under him like he had never been there in the first place.

The first thing he heard after that was a splash. The second thing was perhaps the best sentence he had heard all day. “I got him!” 

All the breath he had been holding left him at once. He went to lean back on the ice, but the moment he leaned his weight on one of his hands he collapsed onto the surface of the river, cursing from the pain. The ice around him seemed to glow red in the morning sun from the bright patches of blood. His hands were shaking where he held them in front of him, laying on his side in the snow. The skin of his palms were flayed open, exposing the damaged muscle and glimpses of bone. The edges of the injuries were burned an angry red, blisters forming nearly to the wrist of both hands. He was still staring at them when Ant came into view. 

“C’mon George, we gotta go. Can you walk?” 

He nodded, even though he wasn’t completely sure. “Help me up, please.” He didn’t like how weak his voice sounded, but there was no helping it. 

“I’ll be right back for you, I gotta get Dream to the others. Sit tight, okay?”

He nodded again, but Ant was already gone. By the time the cat had returned, George was nearly dizzy from looking at the blood around him. Or maybe he was dizzy from losing the blood itself? He wasn’t sure. Ant was careful to only grab his arms to pull him up, avoiding touching the still-bleeding cuts on his hands. The change in gravity made George stumble, the blood rushing in his ears. 

“Do you need to lean on me? You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are.” the cat slid an arm under his, drawing their sides together. George rested against his friend and let him support some of his weight. By the time they got to shore, George was sure that he wouldn’t be able to make his own way home. 

“Okay, I got him. Follow Sapnap, Dream’s gonna need healing, fast.” Bad sounded shaky, but less panicked than before, He took George from Ant with practiced ease and the cat disappeared down the trail they had come from. It was only then George realized they were alone.

“Dream?”

“He’s okay, he’s okay. Sapnap picked him up and started booking it back home the moment I was sure he was breathing properly.” Bad gave him a once-over, pausing when he looked down at the cuts on his hands. “Oh, what am I going to do with all of you. Always getting yourselves hurt…”

“Sorry.”

“You can make it up to me by not passing out before we get home.” Bad took a moment to set him down. Within a few minutes, the demon had managed to wrap both of his hands in temporary bandages, stopping the majority of the bleeding. “Alright, we better catch up to Sap and Ant.” Bad took hold of his arms, hefting the human onto his back. “Hold on to me, okay?”

George nodded into his back, grateful all over again for how warm the demon was. 

Bad jostled him slightly. “Hey, you better talk back to me. Blood loss and sleeping don’t go well together. I said hold on to me, _okay?_ ”

“Yeah yeah, okay.” It was barely more than a mumble, but Bad seemed to accept it. 

The demon began to jog down the trail, asking him a blur of questions as they went. He was content to simply leech body heat out of his friend and drift into darkness. Bad’s voice rumbled through him and faded to nothing. This time when his eyes slipped shut, they didn’t open again.


	3. Like Leaf Enclosing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw: some description of needles, stitches, blood, and injuries. 
> 
> (also holy heck thank you guys for the support on this so far! i am thriving)

There were many things Bad liked about being a demon. He never got cold, never got too warm, he healed from injuries quickly, and could look absolutely terrifying when he needed to. It all seemed to come in handy at one point or another. Currently, he was thanking his lucky stars for the inhuman speed of his step. Even with George’s dead weight on his back and the extra time it had taken to bandage the ghastly cuts on the man’s hands, he managed to catch up to the other hunters before they reached spawn. 

As he got closer, Ant’s ears twitched. The cat glanced back at him. “Bad! Holy shit, is George okay?”

“He passed out from blood loss a minute or two ago, I think the sword hit a vein.” Bad shifted the hunter on his back a little bit, keeping him from slipping off. Sapnap was several paces ahead of him, not once looking back to acknowledge him. He was holding Dream tightly, the runner draped over his shoulders.

“Is it serious? Like, is he bleeding out?” Ant fell into step next to him, eyes catching on the reddening bandages around George’s hands.

“He’ll be fine, he’s just gonna be exhausted for a day or so.” Bad tried to sound comforting, but it was strained even to his own ears. They all ran on in silence for a while longer, trusting Sapnap to guide them back to spawn and, in turn, the portal home. They had made it out of the snow-covered forest, through towering gravel mountains, past the desert, and into a vast plains biome. It was familiar, they had walked this path before. The portal came into view over the hill before them and Bad let out a relieved “ _Yes!_ ”

The trip home was a blur, as it always seemed to be. They all piled into the softly glowing square of white magic, focusing on their own little world. Somehow even the uncomfortable stomach-drop feeling of warping felt like coming home.

The portal dropped them, rather unceremoniously, in a pile on the living room floor. 

“Oh my god! Oh my god. Christ. Oh my god. You guys need to stop doing that, I hate you. I actually hate you.” 

Bad looked up from where they had landed. Skeppy was standing braced against the wall with a hand pressed to his chest, breathing heavily.

“You nearly gave me a heart attack, I swear- Wait, are you guys okay? Whoa…” 

“Dream and George are hurt. Help me?” 

Skeppy seemed to register the worry in his expression and stood up straight. “Yeah, yeah, of course. What do you need?”

The night passed pretty quickly after that. They managed to get Dream out of his freezing cold, still-wet clothing. Bad dried his hair as gently as he could, then helped Skeppy get the runner into bed and wrapped in the warmest blankets they could find. Dream’s breath rattled in his throat. He looked drained of life, dead asleep. 

Every few minutes, he would go into a coughing fit, his body forcing out the last bits of water blocking his airway. Sapnap sat leaned against the headboard, Dream’s head in his lap, and tried not to look heartbroken with every pained noise his friend made. Bad knew that Sapnap would pass it off as making sure his friend was breathing properly, but he knew better. The hunter curled closer with every cough as if trying to protect Dream from the world.

Eventually, Bad left Dream in Sapnap and Skeppy's care, sharing an understanding look with the diamond hybrid as he left. The demon closed the door as gently as possible, not wanting to disturb the tense silence that had fallen over their little cabin. 

Down the hallway to his right, he could hear Ant speaking softly and moving around the kitchen. When Bad joined him, the cat sighed in relief. “You don’t look too frantic so I’m guessing Dream is doing okay.” 

Bad let out a weak laugh. “Yeah, he stopped shivering at least. We’re gonna have to keep an eye on his breathing though, he won’t stop coughing.” 

“I’m sure it’ll be alright. Can you help me with this one?” Ant pointed towards the living room absently.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” George whined from the couch. He was sat with his hands resting palm-up on his legs, glaring down at the makeshift bandages Bad had given him hours before.

Ant just smiled over at him. “He wakes up and the first thing I get is sass. This is why I moved out to be with Velvet, y’know? I get no appreciation from you idiots.” The cat turned and handed Bad a glass of water and a small plate of orange slices. “Help him eat. I’m worried he’s gonna pass out on us again if we move him.” 

“Alright. Do you mind setting up the med kit in the bathroom? His hands are gonna need stitches.” 

Ant nodded and headed back down the hallway, leaving the demon alone with George. The other hunter looked tired, but not on the edge of passing out like he had been by the river. “Is Dream alright?”

“He’s gonna be fine, George, I swear.” Bad sat down next to him on the couch, careful not to jostle him too badly. By the time he had helped George down the water and a few of the orange slices Ant had made his way back to the living room. “Ant, can you help me get him up?”

“I can stand up on my own!”

“Yeah, sure. George, don’t be a pain.”

The hunter squawked at that, but didn’t fight them when they helped him off the couch. Together, they escorted George to the bathroom. 

Bad split off from the two of them for a moment, stopping to poke his head into Dream’s room. In the few minutes he had been left alone, Sapnap had dragged the runner into his arms and wrapped himself up in the blankets with him. He had also, apparently, managed to fall asleep in record time. Skeppy smiled at him from the armchair in the corner. They knew each other well enough that Bad could nearly hear what he was trying to say with that smile. _I’ll watch them, don’t worry. I got this._

Bad left the room, his heart a little bit lighter than before. 

Ant flagged him down from the bathroom doorway. “I’m gonna head home, if you guys are all good here. I’ll be back tomorrow with some food, just to make sure you aren’t worrying yourselves sick over Dream.”

“Thank you, see you tomorrow, Ant. I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

The cat nodded, said his goodbyes to George, and left them alone. As he walked away, Bad could see the energy go out of his fluffy shoulders. They were all tired, but Ant had been the one to figure out a solution and to pull Dream out of the river. Bad glanced at George, who had sat down on the floor against the wall. Seeing him grab the sword was one of the most painful things he had seen in a while, both physically and emotionally. 

“Alright, let’s fix you up then.” Bad grabbed the suture supplies from where Ant had laid them out on the table by the sink. 

Sewing up injuries was old hat for all of them by now, so the process of preparing the cuts and the needle took no thought at all. He never had gotten used to how his friends would flinch from the pain, but it was worth it if it meant they healed faster. 

They both got lucky. Bad had managed to get through closing about half of the cuts before the day began to catch up with them.

In hindsight, it all started when they stopped their idle conversation and sat in silence, Bad carefully lining up each suture and George wincing at each press of the needle through his skin. Night had fallen at some point, leaving them in the warm glow of the lanterns George had set up around the cabin years ago. The quiet was broken eventually. A painful, muffled coughing fit sounded out from the direction of Dream’s room. They both turned to look towards the sound and Bad felt like he couldn’t breathe for every moment that Dream choked on whatever water was left behind in his throat. 

Eventually, the coughing stopped, replaced by a gentle snore he had to strain to hear. At least he was breathing, Bad thought. That’s all they could ask for.

“We were so close.” George‘s voice was quiet.

Bad looked at him, taking in his sad, downcast eyes, and tried to stop his heart from breaking. “Close to what?”

“We almost lost him today. I…”

“He’s alive, George. You and Ant saved him, don’t dwell on what could have been.”

“He thought I was letting him go.” The words were barely above a whisper. “When I let go of the sword so Ant could get him. I saw his eyes. He… He thought I was giving up on him.” George looked up for only a moment, his eyes full of emotions Bad couldn’t even begin to parse out. “How little does he think I care about him?” 

There was far too much about the confession to pick apart, so Bad stayed quiet. He held George’s hands a little tighter, abandoning the sutures for a moment. The other hunter’s eyes were back to staring vacantly at the floor.

Neither of them spoke again for a long time. Bad picked the needle back up and they continued with their little rhythm of needles and wincing. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Bad noticed George’s winces had turned into a subtle trembling of his shoulders. He wasn’t crying, but he was close enough to it to shake Bad to his core. 

So that’s how they spent their night, holed up in their tiny bathroom, listening to one of the most important people in their lives choke on air, both of them teetering on the edge of tears, tying up sutures on cuts that should never have had to be opened in the first place.

It was cathartic, in a way.


	4. Colder than a Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: nothing much for this chapter! someone starts panicking but only a little bit

Sapnap hadn’t meant to fall asleep. In his defense, it had been an absurdly long day, most of it spent carrying his best friend and sprinting after not getting any sleep the night before.

He woke up slowly, wincing as he shifted and felt the muscles in his legs burn. It didn’t help that he had the beginnings of a headache, which is probably what woke him up. Sapnap’s eyes opened to the soft light of the lanterns. He was in Dream’s room.

_Dream_

He went to sit up, to check on his friend, to make sure everything was okay. Flashes of residual fear from the previous day coursed through him and-

Dream was asleep, half-draped over Sapnap’s side, laying on his stomach, breathing evenly. For the first time in a while, his mask was nowhere to be seen, discarded somewhere in the house the night before. The runner looked peaceful, a heavy, sure weight against his side. The stress faded with every breath he could feel huffed against his shoulder and he slowly laid back down. The runner hadn’t stirred, but did shift closer to him as he settled, burying his face further into Sapnap’s chest. He laughed lightly. It had been a long time since Dream was this clingy, even if it was only while asleep. 

He was waking up a bit more, awareness expanding past the body next to his. Skeppy was sleeping, curled up on the armchair across the room, and the sun was creeping its bright fingers under the curtains. The house was silent except for the snippets of birdsong from the forest outside. No immediate danger, nothing to worry about.

Well, not _much_ to worry about. His headache was worsening as he moved around and woke up. The weight of the blankets felt too heavy, suffocating. As much as he could without jostling Dream, Sapnap shifted some of the mountain of blankets off of the two of them. 

As he did, his forearm brushed over the back of Dream’s neck. He flinched back in surprise. The skin was burning; feverishly hot. Any thought of blankets or his own comfort abandoned him. He pressed his hand back to his friend’s skin, double-checking the temperature.

“Skeppy, wake up.” He hissed at the other man. He didn’t react, but the diamond veins running along his skin lit up a little, glowing as he came back to awareness. “ _Skeppy_.”

Skeppy bolted up, unsteady from sleep. “Huh? I’m up, I’m up.”

“Go get Bad, Dream has a fever.” 

“Wait, really?” The hybrid rubbed his eyes, squinting at him. “What time is it?”

Sapnap glared at him. “Does it matter? Go get Bad!” 

“Okay, okay! You don’t need to yell at me.” Skeppy stood up slowly, still half asleep by the looks of it, but didn’t waste time heading out of the room and into the hall. Sapnap knew he’d feel bad about snapping at him later, but now wasn’t the time. 

As gently as he could, he flipped Dream onto his back. The change in position launched the runner into a coughing fit, weak and sleepy but still concerning. The coughs sounded… unhealthy. By the time he was breathing normally again, it rattled in his throat like the air had to claw its way into his lungs. 

Sapnap idled by his side, suddenly unsure of what to do. Now that the blankets were all shrugged off, he shivered in the morning air even as his core was still overheated, uncomfortable. The more time Bad took to show up, the more time he had to wake up completely, the more time he had to think. He took an experimental deep breath and-

It was cut off by a strangled, deep cough. He bent over with it, stifling himself on his arm. _Fuck_. 

As he coughed, he heard footsteps at the doorway. He just managed to get in a few shallow breaths as a hand rested on his back, rubbing between his shoulder blades.

“C’mon, deep breath in…” Sapnap managed to inhale shakily. “That’s good, good job. Breathe out, slow.” Bad put his other hand on his forehead and he followed the instruction. 

“Dream has a fever.” He managed once his breathing went back to normal. His voice was scratchy.

“Yeah, so do you, muffinhead.” 

“Oh...” 

Bad sighed, helping him lay down next to Dream, who was still sleeping despite the noise and the increasing light coming through the curtains. It was starting to get concerning, given how light of a sleeper the runner usually was. Sapnap shivered involuntarily, Damn, he really did have a fever, didn’t he?

The demon had perched on the bed on Dream’s other side, listening to his breathing for a few long seconds before pulling away again. Whatever he was listening for didn’t relax him at all, but he still smiled comfortingly at Sapnap. “It doesn’t seem too serious. We might need to ask Ant to bring us some health potions, though.” Bad pulled a few of the blankets back over the two of them and got off the bed. “I’ll be right back. Stay in bed, okay?” 

Sapnap nodded, hating how it brought his headache back to life like shaking up a soda can. Everything was a little hazy around the edges and the more awake he was the more everything hurt. 

He squirmed under the blankets, turning onto his side to press against Dream. Sapnap drifted, thoughtless and exhausted, for a few long moments. He glanced at Dream’s face and frowned. The man was still asleep. Had he woken up once the entire morning? Had he even stirred to do anything but cough? Sapnap felt the familiar worry seep back in, bringing his arms up from where they were pinned at his sides to poke Dream in the side. It reminded him distantly of when they were kids, irritating each other to no end. Now, instead of getting a sleepy glare shot his way at the jab to the ribs, Sapnap got nothing. Dream stayed sleeping even as Sapnap shook him slightly. 

“Dream?” 

He shook the runner again.

“Dream, c’mon...”

“Hey, hey, no. Let him rest.” Bad had returned. When had he come back? Sapnap couldn’t focus. The demon smoothed his hands over the blankets, pushing him back down, forcing him to relax.

“He won’t wake up. Bad-” Desperation laced his words. Desperation clawed at the edges of his mind. 

“It’s okay, he’s okay.” Bad gathered him closer, but made sure not to pull him too far from Dream. Sapnap had a deathgrip on the runner’s sleeve.

“But he won’t wake up! Why...why won’t he…”

“He’s exhausted, Sap, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s asleep until this afternoon.” Bad sat on the bed again, one hand resting on Sapnap’s shoulder. “Think you can drink some water for me? Dehydration isn’t gonna help whatever bug you caught from Dream.”

Sapnap took the water, trying not to feel too embarrassed at how much Bad had to help him. He had only been awake for a half hour at most, but black was creeping at the edges of his vision again, head heavy against Bad hand as the demon supported him.

Bad smiled at him again. “Speaking of exhaustion…you could probably use some more sleep yourself.” 

He didn’t answer, just nodded and let his eyes close. Bad laid him back down, but didn’t leave. Instead, he sat next to Sapnap like he was a kid again, petting his hair back away from his face with a gentleness he wouldn’t accept from anyone outside of their little group. He was still uncomfortable, breath itching and headache pressing at his skull, but sleep came easily.


	5. Wind-flower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: nothing for this chapter!

Dream didn’t wake up that morning. 

Dream didn’t wake up at noon when Ant arrived with food and medicine. Dream didn’t wake up as the sun began to set and the trees lit up red in the alpine glow. He slept through it all, coughing and breathing and lying still.

It was night again, and George couldn’t help but lurk in Dream’s room, standing vigil as if any threat could reach them in their peaceful, protected corner of the universe. He couldn’t help but mirror the posture of the Dream that lived in his foggier memories. He would stand guard, tall and tense and comforting, by the door as George healed from whatever stupid injury he had gotten this time. George would always make fun of him for it as soon as he regained the strength to, but there was never any heat behind it. 

Even so, he felt like he understood Dream now more than ever as he watched over his friend, as his hands stung, as the runner’s chest rose and fell. He must have stayed like that for hours.

Sapnap had come and gone as the day passed, restless as ever. George never tried to stop him from getting out of bed, but only because he knew that Bad or Ant would chase Sapnap back to bed as soon as they saw him up and about. 

Time passed like the river under ice, rushing and endless but distant, cold. 

Dream never stopped breathing. George kept reminding himself of it, watching and listening for the air in his lungs. The breathes were deepening, evening out despite the sickness that ravaged them. 

He felt like a part of him was still out on that ice, crusted to the snow like his blood. It felt like his own breath had been crushed out of him somewhere along the way and he still couldn’t get it back. At some point, the man who had just narrowly escaped drowning and was now coughing on what felt like every other inhale was breathing easier than he was. He glanced away from where Dream slept, eyes blank and unseeing. He wondered what it had felt like on the other side of the ice; staring up at the blurry sky, the fleeting hope of a familiar face, the crippling fear of being allowed to slip away. He had seen the betrayal in Dream’s eyes, he wondered if Dream could see the fear in his.

“George?”

The cold air burned through his lungs all over again despite the steady warmth of the bedroom. His throat closed up. 

“Dude, look at me. _George_.”

Would Dream trust him after this? Would he flinch away from the last face he saw before the water rushed into his lungs? Would he wake up at all?

He startled as hands landed on his shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.” Sapnap’s voice was scratchy, but as familiar and comforting as ever. George leaned against him as much as he dared. “You’re not gonna make the sick guy stand here forever, right? C’mon, let’s sit down.” 

He guided George forward but he resisted a bit, the haze lifting a bit from his mind. “You’re gonna get me sick.” 

Sapnap gave him a look. “You’ve already been lurking for what, six hours? Anything we have, you have too. We’re breathing the same air.” He tugged at George again and he relented, taking shaky steps toward the bed. “Plus you’ve always had the best immune system like the bitch you are.”

The sick hunter managed to force him under the blankets next to Dream before getting in after him, trapping him in the middle of the bed. Laying there, feeling less like a guardian and more like the concerned, nervous person that he was, he let himself sag against Sapnap. They shifted around for a few slow moments, settling into a comfortable, sleepy pile like they did as kids. George ended up halfway on his stomach, resting against Dream’s shoulder with Sapnap draped over his back. He reached down after a minute or so of matching his breathing to the bodies around him, gripping Dream’s wrist despite his bandaged hands. The runner’s pulse was strong, as it always seemed to be.

He didn’t sleep, even as Sapnap fell asleep slowly against him. The panic from earlier had faded to a dull ache between his lungs, preventing him from drifting off. 

In hindsight, it was probably for the better. 

Night had fully set in when Dream woke up. George didn’t even notice at first, despite the fact that he has essentially been staring at the hunter for hours on end. 

It was hard to look at Dream’s face. Some part of him still shied away from doing anything more than glance at him. It felt like a breach of privacy, and, for all he knew, it _was_. 

The next time he looked up, Dream’s eyes were open and staring at the lantern-lit ceiling. 

He pushed himself up, shaking Sapnap off of his back to lean over Dream. His eyes drifted to George sluggishly, as if he was barely aware of him.

“ _Dream_.” He couldn’t bring himself to bring his voice above a whisper. Still, he could hear himself repeating the name a few times as his hands fluttered over Dream, unsure of what to do. 

Dream blinked up at him, face distorting slightly in confusion. George tried not to think about how it was the second ever expression he had ever seen the man make. The overwhelming relief of seeing him awake washed through him. Dream mumbled something, the words coming out as nonsense. Based on how delirious he looked, George doubted there was much thought behind them anyways. Still, they sounded just as confused and pained as his expression looked.

“You’re okay, you’re safe, I promise.” 

“S’p?” Dream gripped his arm weakly, worry still twisting his face. Even from the singular syllable, he could hear how wrecked Dream’s voice was. 

“Sap’s right here, he’s sleeping.” 

His head rolled to the side, hazy eyes landing on the snoring hunter next to them. The worry fell away and Dream smiled. George had seen that smile before, the mask not reaching far enough down to cover it, but seeing how it lit up the rest of his face was new. Dream looked back up at him, his smile fading slightly. He coughed a couple more times, wincing at the pain it was probably causing in his throat. “Tir’d” 

“You’ve been sleeping for over 24 hours, how can you _still_ be tired?” He would flinch away from the fondness in his voice if it were any other time, if Dream were any less hurt.

Dream mumbled again, George’s name broken up by the sickness and sleep in his voice. His blinks were taking longer and longer and George smiled through the worry. 

“Hey, don’t sleep yet. Bad’ll kill me if I don’t get you to drink something.”

He got up on his knees, reaching over Dream to the nightstand where Skeppy had left a glass bottle of water. By the time he sat back down, Dream’s eyes were closed again. George didn’t have the heart to wake him despite the imminent threat of a certain demon’s wrath. 

George stared down at Dream, thoughts going in too many directions to focus on any of them too closely. One flash of sadness drifted to the surface, though. Already, he had gotten so used to seeing Dream’s face like this: neutral and drawn in sleep. Dream was supposed to be expressive, laughing like every funny thing he encountered was the last joke he’d ever hear. As George went to lay back down, he promised himself he’d see those expressions too, not just confusion and worry and hurt and _betrayal_. He hadn’t always been a man of his word, but he was certainly willing to try this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do i end too many chapters with the POV character falling asleep? yes. will i continue doing this unabashedly for the rest of the my life? yes.
> 
> thank you for the amazing reception to this fic so far, i appreciate every comment!!! <333


	6. The Breath of the North Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: description of drowning, violence, blood, panic attacks, difficulty breathing.
> 
> buckle up folks!

Part of Dream knew he wasn’t drowning anymore. He remembered being pulled into the cold air and the first few desperate breathes he took as someone dragged him onto dry land. His consciousness was hazy around the edges, like dark clouds were creeping in before the storm. 

It didn’t feel like a memory as the scene replayed in his mind. He was holding his breath desperately against the current, gripping the sword like the lifeline it was. His eyes, uncovered by the mask, were squinted up at the light and George’s blurry silhouette. 

It didn’t matter, in that moment, that he was warmer than he should’ve felt, or that the rush of the water was distant and sluggish. In that moment, it was real all over again.

George was going to have to watch him die, he realized. 

It was with aching clarity despite how muddled everything felt. He stared through the ice, barely able to make out the goggles that George had pushed up onto his forehead.

He wasn’t able to focus any better through the ice before the sword jerked again, bucking him off and into free-fall through the current. The cold water grabbed him with its icy claws and dragged him down, deeper than the riverbed should have been. When the breath left his lungs, the only thing left to fill them was water as dark as the night. His vision faded and the river claimed him for its own.

He shouldn’t have been alive enough to find what happened next surprising, but death never seemed to hold onto him for long.

If not for what felt like the weight of the world, the weight of the current, the weight of _all that dark, cold water, filling his lungs, filling his mind,_ he would’ve sat bolt upright. Instead, he jolted awake, gasping like he was _drowning, drowning, drowning_.

He was awake! He was alive? He took another desperate breath, trying to bring his arms up to push at the weight on his chest, but they were pinned to his sides. Every survival instinct in him told him to _fight_ , to run as hard and fast as he could. With a twist of his shoulders, pressing against the soft sand of the riverbed, pulling his trapped arm through the water, he managed to get himself upright. 

He took another breath, labored and scratchy and _wrong_ and-

The coughing felt like it ripped through his ribcage, tearing away pieces of his throat.

He had to breathe, he couldn’t stop breathing. The water was going to come back, he was going to fall into the current again. With every inhale, the coughing returned twice as viciously.

It was too much, he was wasting air, he was going to run out and his lungs _burned_. 

He remembered diving in ocean ravines, hunting for resources or a place to hide, with one hand over his mouth and nose to keep the air from escaping. Even when his lungs begged for him to let it out, there was still oxygen, he could stay down for a little bit longer. 

With one hand over his mouth and nose, lightheaded and in pain, Dream realized he was panicking.

Panic was bad. Panicking made it hard to fight, panicking could get him killed. He knew he had to calm down but he _couldn’t_ and that made the panic worse.

A hand appeared on his shoulder.

He was attacking before he had a grasp of what was going on. The familiar weight of his utility belt was gone, but the small dagger strapped to his arm was still in place. His right arm lashed out to grab his attacker while his free hand caught the grip of the knife. In a twist of color and movement, he had them pinned under him, the edge of the blade digging into the skin of their throat. 

Dream opened his mouth to speak. He wasn’t sure what he was planning to say or ask, but it didn’t really matter. Instead of words, another cough clawed its way out of him, followed by another round of desperate inhales. His grip on the knife didn’t loosen, years of practice and control keeping the blade steady despite everything. 

Once he got a few good breaths in and the blackness faded from the edges of his vision, he became aware of a few things. His attacker was touching him, one hand steady on his waist and the other resting gently on the arm pinning them down. They weren’t pushing him away, they weren’t holding him tight enough to keep him from getting away. 

They were talking, too. The blood rushing in his ears had drowned it out, but it was filtering through louder and louder as his panic subsided. His breathes were coming easier, slower.

“Alright, now breathe out for eight. One, two, three…” George kept counting, and Dream tried not to be too shocked that he was already following what he said. He also tried not to react too dramatically to realizing he had his best friend pinned with a knife to his throat. 

“In for four, Dream. One, two, three, four.” He didn’t breathe as he pulled the dagger away. “Dream?” He didn’t breathe as he saw a line of red where the blade had just been. “Sapnap, back off. I have this under control.”

“Nothing about this is ‘under control’!” Sapnap’s voice was further away, across the room. He sounded like he was close to tears and Dream’s heart ached. 

“I’m going to take the knife, Dream, is that okay?”

He nodded, more out of instinct than actually answering the question. George took his hand gently, taking the dagger from his grasp and placing it on the bedside table. 

“See? it’s fine.” George spared a glance to where Sapnap’s voice came from. He was too tired to look, too busy trying to remember that he wasn’t drowning, that he wasn’t dying. “Dream, you’re sick, you should lay back down.” 

“I-” His voice sounded painful even to his own ears. “You’re hurt.”

“My hands will be fine, Bad stitched them up.”

Confusion filled him. “Your hands? What? No, I hurt you, your neck, you’re bleeding.” As he spoke he looked to George’s hands and…

They were both bandaged to the wrist. His left palm was stained red with new blood seeping through. Dream must have reopened an injury, he was sure of it. 

“You can apologize by laying back down.” 

“George…”

“I’m serious. You’re still not breathing enough, you’re sick, _and_ you’re an idiot.”

He took a moment to take stock of himself. He was sitting on his bed in their cabin, one knee resting next to George where it had previously been pinning his chest, hands shaking in his lap. Suddenly feeling the weight of exhaustion on his shoulders, he lowered himself back to the mattress. George helped him down, sitting up to support him when all the energy left him.

“Sapnap, can you get Bad for me?” George was using the soft voice that almost never made an appearance. “Tell him Dream’s awake again.” The door opened and closed, muffled footsteps rumbling down the hall.

“Again?” He couldn’t help the surprised question, even laying there limp and lightheaded. 

“You woke up for a few minutes last night. You weren’t very lucid, though. I’m not surprised you don’t remember.” 

Dream shifted onto his back, looking up at George where he was leaning against the headboard. He was dabbing at the line of blood inching down his neck. 

“Sorry…”

“I forgive you. You wouldn’t have hurt me on purpose.” George gave him a look he couldn’t decipher, but at least part of it was concerned. “You’re still not breathing well.”

He inhaled shakily, trying to keep it as smooth as possible. He didn’t want George to be worried, he didn’t want Sapnap to sound scared, he didn’t want Bad to come in to see him hyperventilating like the scared child he had been when they first met. He coughed before he could finish the breath and George’s frown deepened. 

This wasn’t fair. He had survived only to have nightmares about drowning and then barely be able to breathe while awake. He could never seem to get a normal level of luck.

“Dream, calm down. You’re gonna pass out at this rate.” He said it with his usual level of bluntness, emotions tucked neatly away once again, but he still reached out to rest his hand on Dream’s arm, tapping out the same breathing rhythm as before. After a few seconds passed, George began counting under his breath just loud enough for him to hear.

Breathing got easier. George relaxed and settled back down next to him, careful not to stop the tapped rhythm that Dream was clinging to like a lifeline. They laid side by side, matching each other inhale for inhale, exhale for exhale. The sun rose higher in the sky in its eternal wheel, the cicadas buzzed just outside the glass of the window, and Dream cried.

He didn’t cry often, and when he did it was almost always caused by laughing too hard. It was an unfamiliar feeling when the tears started to fall, cutting cold lines from the outer corners of his eyes to his pillow. When he reached up to brush them away he realized something else.

His fingers touched skin, not ceramic. 

His mask was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sorry for the cliffhanger >:3
> 
> also holy heck 2k hits? thanks for being here kings i hope you're having fun


	7. These and None Other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: grossly detailed description of a zombie hoglin, violence
> 
> instead of giving you a satisfying conclusion to last chapter's cliffhanger, i present you with an unnecessary flashback sequence! enjoy! this is for y'all who are here for the dadboyhalo content.

In the grand scheme of things, Bad hadn’t known his friends for very long. In their own lives, he had been present for sizable proportions of their lifespans. From what Sapnap told him, he could hardly remember what life was like without Bad there.

There were a lot of things Bad did not like about being a demon; his seemingly indefinite life would probably become one of them before long. 

Of course, having the opportunity to meet his mortal friends and spend so much time with them was a gift he’d never fully pay the universe back for, but the thought of losing them eventually felt as close to punishment for his debts as fate could muster. 

Out of all of them, he had met George first. He couldn’t remember the exact moment they had crossed paths first, but one moment he had been working as a lone bounty hunter and the next he and the world’s most blasé 15-year-old were running jobs side by side, as if they had never been separate. At some point, he and Skeppy were cooking for three instead of just two as if it was the most natural thing in the world. 

Meeting Dream and Sapnap had been memorable, and by the spirits he wishes it hadn’t been.

Bad couldn’t help but think back on it in times like this, when one or both of them were hurting. This time was worse. It felt like the whole ordeal was replaying over and over and all he could do was sit on the couch with Dream’s mask cradled in his hands. George had made this mask, years ago, when the old one had become too small for Dream’s face. It was a birthday present that the hunter had spent months perfecting the enchantments on, determined to make it as easy of a transition as possible from the old mask.

The old mask was still tucked away somewhere, Bad was sure. Some things contain too many memories, even if they’re unpleasant, to get rid of. 

Dream had been wearing that mask when Bad first saw him.

Usually, Skeppy was there to keep him from dwelling on the past, but Skeppy had fallen asleep next to him on the couch an hour ago. His attempts to get Bad to sleep had failed, and then his attempt to stay awake in protest had failed. So, Bad was left to get lost in his memories; memories of children and smiling masks and past dangers.

The town he and George were travelling through wasn’t the safest place, but it always seemed to provide the most profitable bounties. It wasn’t on any maps and was kept quiet enough to not attract the eyes of the law. The locals called it Feldspar, Bad preferred never to stay long enough to call it anything at all. 

“Where are we meeting this contact of yours again?” George sounded bored, as he usually did when they were in public. He was more animated when they were on their own, which Bad was proud of. They had celebrated George’s sixteenth birthday only a few weeks before when they were back at camp with Skeppy. The boy had been all smiles for the first time since they began working together and Bad could only feel grateful. Trust was difficult in the world they lived in, full of monsters of all kinds and too few happy endings. George’s smile felt like a secret that he was more than willing to keep to himself, especially in such a dangerous town.

Bad adjusted his packs, eager to set them down in whichever inn they risked for the night. “A new tavern, I guess, I don’t recognize the name. I hope we can find it fast, she doesn’t seem like the type you keep waiting.” 

“New tavern, huh?” George’s tone didn’t change much, but Bad could hear the surprise laced through the words, though. They both knew that a ‘new tavern’ probably housed something...less pleasant inside. 

“Let’s just keep our heads down, we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, because we always are around here.” George reached up to scratch at his forearm, a silent reminder of the old scar that marred the skin there, the result of a knife fight that had driven them out of Feldspar not a year beforehand. 

“It’s just one night, George, don’t worry.”

“One night and a _new tavern_.” 

Bad waved him off, pushing down his own feelings of unease. If both of them got nervous they’d just feed off of eachother until they chickened out of what could be one of their most profitable hunts yet. “We’re here. Remember what I said about keeping our heads down.”

His companion nodded, slipping back behind his typical bored, impassive facade. 

The tavern’s exterior was a little more ramshackle than the surrounding buildings, giving away how quickly it had been constructed. The entrance loomed over them, a shoddy archway hemmed in by a few loitering, suspicious-looking folks. They walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the doorway into the dimly lit interior. 

It was louder than he was expecting, most of the shouts and cheers muted by the thick layers of wood making up the walls. 

The noise wasn’t what brought Bad up short, though. 

He smelled blood.

It was too much to be the aftermath of a bar fight, too strong to be anything but human. The smell felt like it was boxing him in, caked into the atmosphere like fog. Deathplace, his mind chanted at him, _deathplace, deathplace, deathplace_. 

“ _Bad_ , what is it? 

Any thought of the job abandoned him. “Something’s wrong.” 

The teenager glanced around the room warily. “Like, wrong-wrong? Do we need to run?”

“Stay close, we need to look around.”

“Look around for what? Bad, what’s going on?”

He grabbed George’s arm dragging them both deeper in the building. 

As far as he could tell, there weren’t any interior walls. The room was open with a sunken floor, going down in a spiral at the center. Light emanated from the bottom, flickering like torchlight. The crowd blocked the view, clogging up the walkway. They pushed through the throngs little by little, the scent of blood getting stronger with every step. Bad broke through the wall of bodies, catching a glimpse of the bottom of the pit. 

It was a rough oval of sand, sunk ten feet into the ground and lit up like a carnival. At first all he could see was the towering form of a zombie hoglin, prowling the arena like a horrifying parade float. It wasn’t until George gasped at his side that he noticed what was, apparently, the main attraction.

What caught his eyes first was the mask. 

The smile was simple, stark and confusing amidst the blood-stained sand. It sat like armor over the face of the child who wore it. Dirty, shoulder-length hair obscured some of the mask, tucked partially into the hood of the ripped green jacket he had on. The kid was scrawny, but stood tall in front of the hoglin, dagger poised to kill.

 _No_ , his mind corrected, _to protect_. In the masked child’s shadow, there was a second, smaller figure. The boy was stocky, crouching and staring up at the mob through too-long black hair. The two children were bloodied, bruised, and dirty. Their clothes were ripped up, knuckles wrapped like brawlers twice their age. 

Bad’s heart broke for them. George was holding his hand in a grip slightly tighter than necessary. 

“We can’t, Bad.” The words were hissed, meant for his ears only. “We can’t help them, it’ll get us all killed, _including_ them.” 

“We have to try!” 

In the arena, the hoglin reared up, roaring through rotting vocal cords. 

Looking back, Bad couldn’t remember hesitating for even a moment. 

He tugged his arm free from George’s grasp and vaulted over the wall. The crowd kicked up in volume, but Bad had a job to do, he didn’t have time to listen. A bolt had been fired from his crossbow before he could even register pulling out the weapon, lodging deep in the hoglin’s side. The mob screamed in rage, reeling around to look at him. Its dead eyes bored through him and he would’ve felt afraid if not for…

Well, if not for the masked child. Bad could barely see the boy over top of the hoglin, but what he saw was enough. The thrumming nervousness that had dominated the child’s posture before had faltered into something that looked enough like relief for Bad to be satisfied with his decision, even if it got him killed. 

Boots hit the ground behind him and Bad smiled. He wouldn’t die here, because he wasn’t alone, because he had people, _plural_ , to fight for

“George, go wide right on my mark, grab the kids. Yell if you need help.” He didn’t need to see the teenager to know he had nodded. Bad stood his ground, staring down the hoglin like the barrel of a gun. He drew the netherite blade from his back slowly, trying not to set off the mob before he was ready. 

The hoglin, apparently, didn’t care much for what he wanted. 

After a warning roar, it pivoted and charged at him, kicking up sand in swathes under its hooves. He managed to signal George to run before the hoglin was on him, but there wasn't much else he could do. As it drew closer, he could see chunks of rotting skin flaking off of the zombie, exposed ribs grinding against where the crossbow bolt stuck out of its side. The demon stood his ground, sword swung out in front of him, and counted down the seconds until the thing would hit him.

Time froze the moment before impact, and Bad launched into the air. He twisted around as the hoglin passed under him, landing squarely on its back. 

The rotting body of the hoglin crumpled slightly under his weight, but Bad held back his revulsion. He had to do this quickly. The crowd jeered down at him, filling the air with the piercing sound. He raised his sword high, gripping it with two hands, and drove it down into the center of the hoglin’s skull.

The zombie collapsed into steam beneath him, sending him rolling to the sandy floor. The crowd was booing down at them, but Bad didn’t care. He cast his eyes around the space, searching for George and the children. 

“Bad! Help me!”

Oh, there they were. Against the far wall of the arena, the masked child had George cornered, because of course he did.

Before Bad could move to help his companion, a door set into the wall that he hadn’t had the time to notice before began to rattle, shouting emanating from behind it. The game was up, they had to get out. 

He rushed to the three children without much of a plan, casting around for an escape route. He came up with something half-baked as he scooped up the smallest of the three, the black-haired, feral-looking one. The child hissed at him and the masked child turned on him like a viper, but they didn’t have time to fight. In the moment of distraction, George grabbed the boy from behind. 

Bad held the smaller kid under one arm, fumbling for his communicator with the other. When he got it out, he felt a wash of relief seeing Skeppy was online. Bad texted as fast as he could, sent the message, and tugged George against his side. 

Skeppy was a lot of things, and reliable was definitely one of them. The familiar tug of the stasis pearl dissolved the world around the four of them until they disappeared entirely.

In a flurry of purple smoke, their semi-permanent campsite appeared around them, and they were safe.

Bad smiled at the memory. Of course, things hadn’t been smooth sailing from there. While it hadn’t taken Sapnap too long to warm up to them, Dream had refused to speak or interact with them for months. It wasn’t until George had gotten through to him that any of them, aside from Sapnap, had heard the boy speak.

It had been worth it, all of it. 

The mask smiled up at him, looking empty without the man behind it. Perhaps selfishly, Bad wondered if the runner would choose not to wear it after this incident, even if just around the house. It had been a long time since he had seen Dream’s face. It hurt that the only mental image of his face that Bad had was one of a crying, panicking 13-year-old, struggling to make sense of a world that had never been kind to him. 

He shook himself out of his thoughts. It wasn’t worth dwelling on, It is, his mind whispered, it is important, he’s family, family, family.

A noise from upstairs startled him out of his reverie. Sapnap’s familiar footsteps were thundering down the stairs and dammit, he should still be in bed. Would any of these kids ever learn how to rest?

“Bad!” Oh, that sent a chill down his spine. Sapnap rarely sounded scared. Angry, enthusiastic, happy, yeah. Nervous, sure. But fear? Sapnap afraid opened a pit at the bottom of Bad’s stomach. 

“What? What’s going on?” He rushed to meet the other hunter, catching him by the forearms before he went tumbling into a faceplant. 

“Dream’s awake! For real this time, he had a panic attack, he hurt George, I-”

Bad glanced over his shoulder. Skeppy was still asleep, despite it all. He turned back to look at Sapnap, making sure to get his attention and hold eye contact to get his point across. “Go wake up Skeppy. Stay here, okay? I’ll go help them.”

Sapnap nodded, looking every inch as young as he had in Bad’s memories despite the years that had passed.

As he let the boy go and went to climb the stairs, Bad couldn’t help but feel like he was jumping into the arena once more, rushing to save his kids, his little brothers, his family, without an ounce of regret.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!! leave a comment and kudos if you want! they make my day!


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